Paying Amazon

 

You know this place don't you?

Chances are you've used it for a good while for various things and never more than in the last two or so years when at various times the High Street was either shut completely or restricted to the pure essentials.

Well the first problem I had was I wanted to add my mobile number to it which for historic reasons was never entered and in the height of the pandemic Vodafone had cancelled as they altered the terms and I didn't realize it until I saw I'd been removed from the network. 

You would think adding it would be a simple matter of updating the account profile information but I get sent a OneTimeOnly OTA code to it which after a bit of a delay came through and was duly entered but then it wanted to me to verify it by tapping it.

Well my phone is not a smartphone cos my co-ordination and fingers are badly messed up to the point I can't use one so there was no option so back to the website trailing through assistance pages that had "another method" tm (how cryptic can tech sites get???) which did send a code to my email account.

Remember email accounts? Yeah something so late 90's and 2K and that when entered worked.

Next up is anti fraud measures.

No one likes fraud and it's effects but this since Monday has been affecting payments even payments previously accepted onto the systems where for abnormal or amounts typically over £25 you have to authorize.

Again the common method of doing so is a mobile phone but you may not have you mobile listed on your bank details especially if you've been with them for absolute eons and some only have this via Apps which naturally do not run anything but a smartphone as the banks want to you into internet banking.

Now your mobile signal could be poor to nonexistant where you live or at least your computer does or you may not have a mobile of any sort, not uncommon with those who are elderly.

As I don't do apps and can't use a mobile I can see myself moving away from Amazon for high value transactions using PayPal on other sites such as Ebay who does use systems that work with simple mobile phones or even cheques.

Honestly there's so much faff today in just doing the mundane like shopping.

Getting the best sound for the Dollar

If you hadn't noticed, things over the last 18 months have been changing when it comes to portable digital audio players (D.A.P's) with many people using that Swiss knife of a device, the Smartphone, to play music from while searching the mobile net and texting.
Thing is it's not really designed to get the best sound from your recordings even if an increasing number do better quality lossless files while at the other end of the scale people like Astell and Kern sell very high quality dedicated players from approx £700 upwards and players like the much talked about Pono somewhere in the middle.
Really cheap players are either very limited in terms of capacity and file types or are comprised by cheap electronics when it comes to the sound.

The enterprising Chinese company Fiio launched toward the end of last year a cheaper player from the much liked X3 (a newer version of which is out soon) for around $100 and recently I got one discounted to GBP89.00 (the UK is expensive for electronics).
The first shocking thing to say is it has no internal memory but as micro sd cards are so cheap at around £21 for 64Gb's and may have some from your older player, it's no problem and this play takes upto 128Gb cards which is quite something when it comes to capacity.
Unlike the original X3, this player uses a scroll wheel with a centre okay button for selecting things such as your music, formatting to FAT32 cards over 32Gb, engaging gapless playback for albums where tracks run seamlessly into each other and so on.
Unlike the X3, the player can't be used to output files directly via a computer to a stereo and the battery capacity is a bit less but is appreciably cheaper.
What it does do is play everyday 'lossy' downloads from the likes of Amazon, 7digital and iTunes Store as well as the higher quality lossless (Flac) ones INCLUDING 24 bit better than cd quality ones of which a increasing amount  of new and older recordings are being made available to buy.
Because this player has the option of either using its own high quality headphone circuit or a dedicated line output for a high quality stereo, such files can be fully enjoyed at home and on the move.
It takes around 2 hours to charge the battery using a 1 Amp or higher USB charger ready to set up ready for use from new using the supplied lead.
I find it an easy to use player use although you need to 'index' the card every time you change it for another to use things such as searching by artist, song or playlist.
While it's quality isn't quite as high as the X3 using headphones, it is a lot clearer with better fine details and dynamics  from anything around this price point bettering the various Sansa Clip models and smartphones.
If you're looking for a cheap upgrade for player with more potential for memory expansion, better sound and the ability to use higher quality downloads it can be recommended. 

Caution: Your card has been declined

It was on the face of it a fairly normal Monday although the press commentators had dubbed the day Cyber Monday, the day internet retail giants such as Amazon expect to get the highest amount of Christmas preorders through.
What transpired was anything but, leaving  a good many people with some intriguing questions remaining unanswered.
At approximately 18:00 GMT the credit cards of many people with accounts to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group became unusable both at the ATMs and also for purchases at stores both online and instore. Fixing it took several hours going well into the night with reports the following day saying it was a computer system glitch with profuse apologies offered and talk of not leaving anyone out of pocket.
Consider the following situations people experienced:
People out for social gatherings in a restaurant unable to play their bills.
People unable to pay for groceries in their shopping baskets as their cards were declined
Car owners having bought Gasoline unable to leave as they couldn't pay
Christmas shopping expeditions brought to a holt. 
Customers finding electronic  transactions  failed and in some circumstances unexplained transactions appearing to have occurred.
For some of these making good on losses maybe adequate but consider such things as  embarrassment caused in store by being unable to pay. Should someone like that perhaps get an additional amount for embarrassment at having to have goods returned in public?
What of say you went to order a item on special offer about to pay for it and you were declined. Should losing that offer be compensated?
Finally why was it the banking industry was allowed to spend little on maintaining and upgrading decade old systems patched up after takers and mergers?